Politics

So I was browsing through Netflix the other night, looking at their range of mediocre to abysmal choices of things I haven’t seen when I stumbled across the newish documentary “The People vs George Lucas”. With no better choices at hand I proceeded to watch it as I wrapped up some late night editing for a project I’m behind on at my “real job”. Let me rephrase that: I tried to watch it. I got about halfway through it before I had to turn it off and put on a Beatles album (FYI: A Hard Day’s Night) to wash away the taste it left in my brain. At its most basic, this was nothing more than what any Star Wars fan has seen thousands of times in every nerd/geek/fanboy forum online since the special editions were released in 1997 up through Revenge of the Sith in 2005. And honestly, I’m kind of tired of going over the same ground over and over and over (Han shot first, Jar Jar sucks, George doesn’t care about us, fans have equal ownership, ad infinitum).

To make it perfectly clear, I didn’t really care for the film. Decently made, but I didn’t see the point to it (even if you tell me at the end they defend George’s right to do whatever he wants with his films…who cares? That point was debated a decade ago). But it did really open my eyes to something I’ve never really thought about before: George absolutely did the right thing when he made the prequels. What did he do right, you ask? Well, going all the way back to Star Wars in 1977, George has continually said that these are kid’s movies. Made for kids. Now, most fans see that as a cop-out. An excuse, a shoddy justification for everything they don’t like about the prequels. And I’m not the first person to point out that he is right, these are kid’s movies. We fell in love with them as children. If you really go back and look at Star Wars today with a clear, cynical grown-up’s eye, you can see how juvenile the first movie was. How black and white. How simplistic.Â And there is nothing wrong with that.

Somewhere down the line, “kid’s movie” became synonymous with “dumbed down crap”, but it wasn’t always that way. E.T. is a “kid’s movie”. Every Disney classic is a “kid’s movie”. You can say that The Wizard of Oz is a kid’s movie. But what we’re really saying is that these are family films- enjoyable for all ages. Now, the prequels are regrettably lacking in finesse. They definitely could have used a rewrite or two and a little better character motivations. But look around: kid’s today still love these movies. They like Jar Jar. They think the Battle Droids are funny. Go read Drew McWeeny’s great series on introducing his sons to the Saga: http://in-my-head.org/2011/11/07/recommended-reading-drew-mcweenys-film-nerd-2-0-star-wars-edition/

George made the right call here. He kept aiming that target in the same place he aimed it in 1977 and 1980 and 1983. And the kids that are enjoying the prequels today (and the Clone Wars, and the video games, and the toys) are going to grow up thinking just as fondly about all of this as we did 20-30 years ago.

I know what you’re thinking. I know, I know. You wanted to see something else. You want Jar Jar gone. You didn’t want silly Battle Droids and endless Jedi fighting. Or C-3PO’s antics. I get it, I really do. But let me point you in the direction of a comparable genre that didn’t take the path that Lucas did. No, this property at some point decided that instead of staying aimed at kids, it would grow up with them. It would evolve and start experimenting with just how far it could push the characters and the existing boundaries. It would get dark, it would get edgy. You know where I’m going with this: it’s comics.

At the same moment that Star Wars was capturing a generation of kids, comics was telling those kids that it was OK to never grown up and leave them behind like the previous generations did. No, once the 1980s hit continuity became king. If you weren’t on board from the beginning it became harder and harder to get on the ride. And every year less and less kids were reading comics. And comics responded by catering to that 80s generation’s every whim in a self-destructing feedback loop. So here we are. Comics exist almost solely as fodder for merchandise and movies and once the 40 and 50 year olds stop buying them the industry is pretty much going to die off (How’s that New 52 treating ya, fans?). Or move onto the web. And collectors alone can’t sustain all the toys or even movies when they are anything but a crowd pleasing, family friendly hit (looking at you, Green Lantern!) But Star Wars? Well, kids will be watching that just like they do the Disney films. Every seven years a new generation will pick it up, and the juggernaut starts up all over again.

As I was driving to work last week on my hour long commute I was listening to the Sirius XM channel “Backspin”, which for those who don’t know is a Hip Hop station. Well, really a “Rap” station. Actually, to be specific, an oldies Rap station. And I pondered that: has Rap really been around so long that it has an oldies station?!?

Well, yes. Back when I was in my formative years (the 1980s) I would often listen to the local oldies station (on AM radio!) while my friends were listening to Heavy Metal or New Wave, or yes, Rap. And it felt like that music was from a much distant time, one that had no reflection on what was happening around me. But I was seeing it strictly from the eyes of youth, where all time flow seems long and past events seem ancient. The truth is that the music being played, rock from the 1950s and 1960s, was really only about 10-15 years old at it’s tail end. And because it hadn’t happened within my lifetime it only seemed very old.

The same is true for Rap. To today’s kids, it probably very much sounds like oldies music. In fact, classic Rap is now edging on 40 years old, and most of the material on “Backspin” was popular between 20-30 years ago (full disclosure: I didn’t really become immersed in Hip Hop until my 30s). So if Rap/Hip Hop is hitting the big “4-o”, and we have a sitting president who is only 50 years old, is Barack Obama the first “Hip Hop President”? Now, obviously, this issue does involve his race a bit. Being the first black President makes him more likely to be the first Hip Hop President for two reasons: back then (and still true today) Hip Hop was mainly performed by black artists and its popularity was larger in black audiences. So being black, he would more likely be on the Hip Hop train before a white person of similar age.

The real criteria though is his age itself. The past two Presidents were squarely in the Baby Boomer camp, and aficionados of that era’s Rock and Country music, (both hailing from the South). Before that, we had numerous Presidents of the “Greatest Generation” of WWII participants. So popular music ranging from Benny Goodman to Lynyrd Skynyrd has been amply represented. While I think Obama is skirting the back end of the Boomers, he was hitting just the right age during the birth of Rap, and was in college for Rap’s formative Golden Years.

We know that Obama does listen to Hip Hop (and was criticized for leaving it out of his campaign music), and has cemented a number of friendships with noted artists and pioneers of the form. But I don’t think he is quite the true first Hip Hop President that will be as big a game changer as his being the first black President. Yes, he has let some coded signals to the knowing fan slip into his appearances. Yes, he is already disillusioning those in the community that thought he was the one. Yes, he does hang with Hova and Beyoncé. But Obama might just be a bit too cool. He’s not going to be breaking out in a duet with Busta anytime soon. I could see him as the first Jazz President, maybe, but Clinton easily has that one tied up.

No, Obama is too cerebral, and frankly too old. The real first Hip Hop President will have grown up immersed in the culture, not grown up alongside it. He (or She) will have never known a unified “top 40” music chart, but instead a fractured melange of Grunge, Hip Hop, Acid, Boy Band, Pop. And probably, he will be white. Not white like Rick Santorum, or Mitt Romney. But part of that generation that went to see LL Cool J or Naughty by Nature without ever thinking of them as black performers, but just as one more musical act.

The beauty of time is that eventually all trends are inevitable. And whereas going from Big Band to Pop to Rock seemed jarring at the time, it was a relatively gentle progression (albeit one that led to Civil Rights and Hippie culture, aka all the things that divided the Boomers). Hip Hop, on the other hand, was a cultural shift. And by the time it became mainstream the youth that enjoyed it ranged across the entire spectrum of black, white, rich, poor, gay, straight. This demographic is going to more acceptant of who you are, who you love, and what color your skin is. Mainly by not caring who you are, who you love, or what color your skin is. And so, in my eyes, the promise of the first Hip Hop President isn’t as much about music as it is the inevitability of acceptance. And come to think of it, she’s probably going to be Hispanic anyway.